Over the years, I've noticed a decrease in one thing throughout Seattle: a free restroom.
With the rise of drug use by homeless downtown occupants and a migration of transient University District inhabitants toward Capitol Hill, many businesses have really put their foot down on making sure that only customers are able to use their restrooms.
The downtown McDonald's has even hired a security guard to stand outside its restroom.
Some of the bathrooms that have been publicly used, such as those in the Pike Place Market or Westlake Mall, have been infamous for being used by drug users. After many attempts to crack down, the Seattle City Council went a different route and instituted high-tech public restrooms that have been placed throughout Seattle.
DIFFERENCES IN PERSPECTIVE
The restrooms, which have been called everything from "pricey privies" to "space toilets," are strange-looking contraptions. If you walk by one, you can see that it opens with a sliding door, an electronic voice announcing whenever the contraption is free to use.
The city has allocated $6.6 million to these technological portable toilets, and when they were originally opened, they were met with fanfare.
A news article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 2004 had the headline "At Last, Relief is in Sight as Plush Public Potties Open Downtown." The article described the bathrooms as similar to a "space ride at Disneyland."
At the time of their opening, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) spokesperson Susan Stoltzfus said, "People will be more likely to use them because they stay clean." According to the Seattle Times, however, public benches are frequently marked by human waste, left by inhabitants who didn't seem to find much use for the portable potties set up for them.
Luigi Gephart, a homeless resident of Seattle, told The Seattle Times that he calls the bathroom a "revolving crackhouse," adding, "These are the worst bathrooms you can go to."
In a blog by nationally syndicated talk show host Michael Medved, who happens to reside in the Seattle area, he went all out against the notion that these bathrooms were anything more than another use of tax dollars or in any way helped the homeless.
Medved declared, "True compassion for the homeless begins with an absolute refusal to allow them to continue living on sidewalks, in alleys, underpasses, parks or empty lots, and certainly must avoid any move at all to facilitate or prolong such urban camping."
GETTING 'OUR MONEY'S WORTH'?
SPU spokespeople have contended that the worst problems aren't with the bathrooms themselves, but with public relations. SPU spokesperson Andy Ryan said, "The real problem we're having with [the toilets] is that there is a public perception we're not getting our money's worth."
The bathrooms are costly to remove as well, at about $500,000 each.
Whatever the city decides, they should take into account the costs and benefits over the possible benevolence their intentions may carry.
If the toilets are supposed to fix public bodily performances, why is it that, as reported in an article on the joke website Poopreport.com, there is "more poop on the streets?"
Madison Valley resident Michael Powell can be reached at mptimes@nwlink.com. He also has a web log at mopowell.blogspot.com.
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